A small dental office waiting room fills with patients most afternoons. Patients tend to get restless and irritated because most must wait 45 to 60 minutes past their scheduled appointment times before seeing the dentist.

1. Explain how you could use the five-step planning process (p. 171-173) to identify/define the problem, generate/evaluate possible courses of action, choose a preferred solution, implement the planned solution and evaluate the results.

You may need to make some assumptions to walk us all the way through your planning process. Its your dental office to manage so go right ahead!....just let us know what assumptions you are making.

Caution: The scenario presented was created to provide an interesting topic for discussion. However, it is very important that you do not get caught up in the story at the expense of the learning objective. You must address how all five steps of the planning process could be used to approach the dental office problem.